This is so arbitrary. How about do we really need graphics? Lets just play MUDS.
Can you elaborate? How is it arbitrary? How about the examples I provided. Do you think the current implementation of NPCs in MMORPGs today are the only way it should be done?
Yes, you could have a game without npcs. You could also have a game without content. You could also have a game without things for players to do.
Do I really have to quote myself.
kemono55 said: But it already have been done successfully, haven't it?
Reign of Kings, ARK, Trove, Life is feudal.
i will be honest. ive been playing mmo's for about 10 years. i have honestly never heard of 3 of those games you mentioned. i have only heard of trove and, to me anyways, that game is horribly boring. so i cant really agree its been successfully done since im a frequent visitor mmo sites and those games mean nothing to me. seems to me if those games were popular and successful, i would have heard of them and they would have been copied. maybe im just old. maybe im wrong. hell, i could be wrong.
This is so arbitrary. How about do we really need graphics? Lets just play MUDS.
Can you elaborate? How is it arbitrary? How about the examples I provided. Do you think the current implementation of NPCs in MMORPGs today are the only way it should be done?
can you tell us how this mmo would operate and function without npc's?
H1Z1, Day Z, Ark, and pretty much any other "zombie survival MMO" already have worlds with no NPCs
So no, I do not think it is the ONLY way it could be done. . .
Yeah, said the same thing earlier in the thread, zombie games and similar don't really need npcs. Anything with a few heroes in a hostile world, unless of course you count mobs as npcs.
But most MMOs have both hostile and friendly places and those games are really hard to make without npcs. I think the more interesting question here is what npcs in a game should do.
You can have npcs just as filler, as vendors, as questgivers, as part of a quest or DEs or they could just go around and do their own stuff without really interacting with the players besides making the world seems more real. They could for that matter also be companions players control or just helping out as good as their AI can. They can even be families to the PCs, like parents, spouses and kids. It all depends on what type of game you are going for.
We need NPCs to be MORE integral to advancing quest lines and stories so that when an opposing faction kills them, people have to stand around for at least 12 minutes before they can continue.
Yes, you could have a game without npcs. You could also have a game without content. You could also have a game without things for players to do.
Do I really have to quote myself.
kemono55 said: But it already have been done successfully, haven't it?
Reign of Kings, ARK, Trove, Life is feudal.
Ark, ROK, LOF, as they stand right now are more along the lines of persistent death-matches. Trove is a Minecraft like. SO yes it works for those types of games Minecraft and Battlefield have been popular names for a long time now, longer for the latter.
Yet you're asking this question on an MMORPG site. With that comes an expectation that this question would be asked in relation to that. It's a lot more complicated than saying it works for an unrelated genre of games.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
silverreign said: can you tell us how this mmo would operate and function without npc's?
im very curious now.
Sure, I have a few suggestions and I have a few notes I can share. (note: I'm not saying we should abandon the idea NPCs altogether, just questioning their current purpose in today's mmos)
So NPCs serves these purposes.
- Handing out quests - Telling the Player story - Giving the background of the world and informing current state of affairs. Aka, lore. - Vendor / auction house / storage space - Handing out crafting classes.
(this is pretty much a summary of most MMOs)
The only gameplay technical quest have in an mmo is to advance the players progression, with rewards, such as, experience, gold and loot. I don't see this necessarily as the only available solution.
I think a quest should be something special, something unique and character defining that occurs differently to each player. The example of a mob dropping a broken sword, which you have to reforge, is a very good example of that. Not only, does the player have to travel out in the world and find other players that have the necessary skills to preform such a task, but its also a quest that could happen, but for most players will not.
I should also mention that is something that could be handed out by a GM on mass scale, Lets say that every player (member) of the "Eldor" kingdom is tasked with eradicating the goblin population, by giving double exp for such types of mobs, or higher chance for loot. Suddenly you have something unique for the server, and "world" is creating its own Lore instead of being static.
The player story, Honestly, I think this one could go out the window. Its much more a single player game mechanic than it is a mmo mechanic.
Giving background information about the world, I don't think its always needed in such a degree that it is implemented today. One important subject is that while your character, who has always existed in the world, you as a player know nothing of it. To be honest, in most games, most background lore is given outside of game. But it would also make a lot of sense if you were kept in the dark, for instance if you are playing a fantasy game, chances are that your character know very little outside your own bubble and can only base your knowledge on what is happening right before your eyes (unless you were a highly dedicated scholar). By placing bits and pieces, such as books, ruins of older societies, engravings in the world etc, you could, as a player start to put pieces of information together and learn more about the world by exploring it.
Vendor etc. A storage space, could be a chest. A vendor, could be a player could be a booth that a player sets up with an expiration time. Aka. insert coin, get item. Auction house could go.
Crafting classes and other locked mechanics, I don't see the need to lock crafting classes at all. It makes a lot more sense to have everything available to you as a character, both as a reference to the real world and as a gameplay mechanic. Should you want to focus on crafting everything, and thats your thing, great, you shouldn't have to make 4 alts to do so.
And that pretty much leaves all the npc's you never interact with, and yes, I can see the argument that i populates a world and makes in more ""living"".
(but deep inside you know that they are not living....)
I honestly think, GMs could do a whole lot more on the human aspect. Such as controlling NPCs of "higher power",like the immortal elf king, instead of just having them standing around like a piece of furniture. And interact with the world.
Just pointing out some suggestions to alternatives....
silverreign said: can you tell us how this mmo would operate and function without npc's?
im very curious now.
Sure, I have a few suggestions and I have a few notes I can share. (note: I'm not saying we should abandon the idea NPCs altogether, just questioning their current purpose in today's mmos)
So NPCs serves these purposes.
- Handing out quests - Telling the Player story - Giving the background of the world and informing current state of affairs. Aka, lore. - Vendor / auction house / storage space - Handing out crafting classes.
(this is pretty much a summary of most MMOs)
The only gameplay technical quest have in an mmo is to advance the players progression, with rewards, such as, experience, gold and loot. I don't see this necessarily as the only available solution.
I think a quest should be something special, something unique and character defining that occurs differently to each player. The example of a mob dropping a broken sword, which you have to reforge, is a very good example of that. Not only, does the player have to travel out in the world and find other players that have the necessary skills to preform such a task, but its also a quest that could happen, but for most players will not.
I should also mention that is something that could be handed out by a GM on mass scale, Lets say that every player (member) of the "Eldor" kingdom is tasked with eradicating the goblin population, by giving double exp for such types of mobs, or higher chance for loot. Suddenly you have something unique for the server, and "world" is creating its own Lore instead of being static.
The player story, Honestly, I think this one could go out the window. Its much more a single player game mechanic than it is a mmo mechanic.
Giving background information about the world, I don't think its always needed in such a degree that it is implemented today. One important subject is that while your character, who has always existed in the world, you as a player know nothing of it. To be honest, in most games, most background lore is given outside of game. But it would also make a lot of sense if you were kept in the dark, for instance if you are playing a fantasy game, chances are that your character know very little outside your own bubble and can only base your knowledge on what is happening right before your eyes (unless you were a highly dedicated scholar). By placing bits and pieces, such as books, ruins of older societies, engravings in the world etc, you could, as a player start to put pieces of information together and learn more about the world by exploring it.
Vendor etc. A storage space, could be a chest. A vendor, could be a player could be a booth that a player sets up with an expiration time. Aka. insert coin, get item. Auction house could go.
Crafting classes and other locked mechanics, I don't see the need to lock crafting classes at all. It makes a lot more sense to have everything available to you as a character, both as a reference to the real world and as a gameplay mechanic. Should you want to focus on crafting everything, and thats your thing, great, you shouldn't have to make 4 alts to do so.
And that pretty much leaves all the npc's you never interact with, and yes, I can see the argument that i populates a world and makes in more ""living"".
(but deep inside you know that they are not living....)
I honestly think, GMs could do a whole lot more on the human aspect. Such as controlling NPCs of "higher power",like the immortal elf king, instead of just having them standing around like a piece of furniture. And interact with the world.
Just pointing out some suggestions to alternatives....
sounds good, but you would be a game companies nightmare. a game like that would be extremely difficult to make and maintain.
Probably don't need a world littered with them in a sandbox MMO, but they're typically one of the driving forces in progressing a story in a theme park.
You could go very with, VERY few npc's if you made the game more player driven like Ragnarok online. However for the typical theme-mark mmorpg, nope. You need NPC's for just about everything.
Most are filler props that look more out of place than giving the area a vibrant feeling that the place is alive.
The others are nothing more than someone posting a job offer on a stump....and usually as exciting and useful as the stump. The nerve to tell me to tell something to the guy next to you, or across the town...use the mail system or walk it yourself.....cant kill the things directly in my sight? Try moving locations. I swear if I have to clear a farmers field of respawning mobs, then pick his crops one more time in a mmo...
More logical approach would be to have a handyman office where people can post their odd jobs...because a quest reflects something epic at hand, and that npc just wanted me to hand a note to some idiot nearby, only to have that guy tell me to go kill some creatures nearby....which is anything but epic.
There are a few games where NPC"s are not needed. Problem is you would have to put things people actually want to acquire on the stuff you kill, removing the need for a cheesy reason to go there and start slaughtering those creatures....which is how it should be. The quests...those should be some epic storyline giving me a reason to be not at home banging my npc wife and watching a low polygon tv. The rest ill do if theres reason to without some idiot npc creating a "our writers couldn't think of anything else" reason for me to do it.
Was a cool transition back in the day from farming fields of mobs for no reason for little reward to games that had quest hubs and faster XP....but like all things gaming...they got carried away with it. The rest of the filler NPC's....nothing more than props that serve no purpose other than a boring comment maybe...and really don't make the town or whatever feel alive...
Yes, you could have a game without npcs. You could also have a game without content. You could also have a game without things for players to do.
Do I really have to quote myself.
kemono55 said: But it already have been done successfully, haven't it?
Reign of Kings, ARK, Trove, Life is feudal.
Ark, ROK, LOF, as they stand right now are more along the lines of persistent death-matches. Trove is a Minecraft like. SO yes it works for those types of games Minecraft and Battlefield have been popular names for a long time now, longer for the latter.
Yet you're asking this question on an MMORPG site. With that comes an expectation that this question would be asked in relation to that. It's a lot more complicated than saying it works for an unrelated genre of games.
Ark is Massive (100+ on a persistent map/server) it's Multiplayer, its Online, It also ticks off all the boxes of an RPG.
So is it a MMORPG? I think yes. . .
. . .An MMORPG that happens to have no NPC's in it whatsoever. . .
Do machines count as NPCs? Like Anarchy Online's machines that let you shop for your vanity clothes along with those more essential items, pick up your missions (if you were savvy enough to install Clicksaver you even got to 'hack' those machines and select your desired rewards!), and sell you class specific items in the case of the beloved Trader.
Whatever. I just wish the ubiquitous question mark would go away, leaving players with OCD tendencies like myself to feel freer to ignore machines/NPCs at will rather than serve their every whim.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
Depends on the game, but one thing is certain a mainstream AAA persistent world game without NPC's is doomed to fail. Guess what, it has been done before and it's amazing how it hasn't even been mentioned on this thread yet. AC2 had no NPC's initially. It was designed that way. Want to know "one" of the main reasons why that game failed within just a couple of months of being released - NO NPC's.
It was one of the biggest complaints of the players.
- Handing out quests - Telling the Player story - Giving the background of the world and informing current state of affairs. Aka, lore. - Vendor / auction house / storage space - Handing out crafting classes.
Here are a few more: - law enforcement (ex: UO's town guards, EVE's CONCORD) - allies and enemies, based on factors such as faction, alignment, reputation - Escort, damsel in distress, or other entities requiring player aid (ex: UO's orc/ratman camps sometimes have NPCs that you can escort to safety once you have dispatched the mobs and freed them) - guide, assistant or teacher (ex: a Vendetta Online NPC actually takes you on a training tour in a small fleet)
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I'm assuming you are referring to Asheron's Call 2 (AC2). I have never played it, and I limited information about it. But wasn't that game released just after Asheron's Call 1. And didn't the chat system stop working for months in that game? And wasn't there a bug that made you max level, and no endgame content. Actually, wasn't it a lot of bugs in that game in general... and not balanced at all.
Anyway, assuming no npc's was, as you say, one of the largest complaints. What exactly was missing. And I mean what kind of services was missing from the game that players failed to deliver?
I have played a successful game where only viable equipment were provided and sold by actual players (as opposed to an auction house, npc vendor), or provided as loot. So I have a hard time imagining it is a reason for failure.
@Madimorga ; I agree, every time I see one of those question marks or exclamation marks, I feel like its a checkbox I should be ticking off in order to progress "correctly".
To give a short assessment of the idea. The presence of NPCs is entirely dependent on the type of game being developed.
Planetside one and two for example are completely devoid of NPCs and units external to the players. It works in this instance because it's an MMOFPS that focuses relatively singularly on the large-scale conflict between the groups in the game and doesn't really venture past that PvP focus.
An RPG tends to suffer from a lack of NPCs because they are a big part of making a world feel populated in the absence of players.
So point here being. It depends what the aim of the game itself is and how different assets and mechanics would service the title.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
I get that they serve to bridge the players with the ruleset of the world. But do they have any other purpose besides that, which cannot be filled by a player?
And I understand that any living world needs its fauna.
But when you have six thousand players in your game, most of them leveling up craft skill and all of them wanting to sell something, you decide that your game needs an rock vendor.... why...? The quest hub rock, couldn't they just be replaced by npcs, with an inscription telling people to follow the road until they see the next npc.
Do we need this one size fits all storyline for your hero character, served to you (or forced upon you) by rocks. Should not players be the ones that's telling the story of the game, of the living world.
I think in the past few years, the only interaction I've really had in mmorpgs is with rocks. Do I need a better weapon, I go and find the auction house rock. Sell my junk loot (which could just have been dropped as money in the first place), I need the vendor rock. Learn a new skill, choose a new profession, a subclass, change my hairstyle.....a rock. Just playing the game itself, it seems I'm bound to run around to these quest rocks. I join a guild, great, I suddenly integrated mIRC into the game client, which I can chat in while I interact with the rocks.
I changed up npcs for rocks, and vice versa, just for the silliness of it. NPCs are in game simply for the immersion. I mean who is going to go talk to a rock for help other that at the dmv. I mean, c'mon now.
I changed up npcs for rocks, and vice versa, just for the silliness of it. NPCs are in game simply for the immersion. I mean who is going to go talk to a rock for help other that at the dmv. I mean, c'mon now.
Since you reply, I'm going to assume you have given this some thought. Wouldn't it be more immersive to talk to other players rather than NPCs, having him/her telling you about their current experiences in the world. If you are referring to world lore, as in past tense, this is something natively known to your character, and as such, couldn't it be provided without an npc telling you?
What exactly does your character need help for that can't be provided by other players, or only npcs?
I changed up npcs for rocks, and vice versa, just for the silliness of it. NPCs are in game simply for the immersion. I mean who is going to go talk to a rock for help other that at the dmv. I mean, c'mon now.
Since you reply, I'm going to assume you have given this some thought. Wouldn't it be more immersive to talk to other players rather than NPCs, having him/her telling you about their current experiences in the world. If you are referring to world lore, as in past tense, this is something natively known to your character, and as such, couldn't it be provided without an npc telling you?
What exactly does your character need help for that can't be provided by other players, or only npcs?
Yes, it probably would be more immersive. Good luck finding anyone willing to do anything like that after the first week of a games launch. People can't even be bothered to say hello anymore even if you say hello to them first. Never going to happen. Ever.
Comments
Don't get me started on questing for levels and how much they ruin games
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
How about do we really need graphics? Lets just play MUDS.
Can you elaborate?
How is it arbitrary? How about the examples I provided.
Do you think the current implementation of NPCs in MMORPGs today are the only way it should be done?
So no, I do not think it is the ONLY way it could be done. . .
can you tell us how this mmo would operate and function without npc's?
im very curious now.
Anyways, I like my graphics.
Yeah, said the same thing earlier in the thread, zombie games and similar don't really need npcs. Anything with a few heroes in a hostile world, unless of course you count mobs as npcs.
But most MMOs have both hostile and friendly places and those games are really hard to make without npcs. I think the more interesting question here is what npcs in a game should do.
You can have npcs just as filler, as vendors, as questgivers, as part of a quest or DEs or they could just go around and do their own stuff without really interacting with the players besides making the world seems more real. They could for that matter also be companions players control or just helping out as good as their AI can. They can even be families to the PCs, like parents, spouses and kids. It all depends on what type of game you are going for.
Yet you're asking this question on an MMORPG site. With that comes an expectation that this question would be asked in relation to that. It's a lot more complicated than saying it works for an unrelated genre of games.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Sure, I have a few suggestions and I have a few notes I can share.
(note: I'm not saying we should abandon the idea NPCs altogether, just questioning their current purpose in today's mmos)
So NPCs serves these purposes.
- Handing out quests
- Telling the Player story
- Giving the background of the world and informing current state of affairs. Aka, lore.
- Vendor / auction house / storage space
- Handing out crafting classes.
(this is pretty much a summary of most MMOs)
The only gameplay technical quest have in an mmo is to advance the players progression,
with rewards, such as, experience, gold and loot.
I don't see this necessarily as the only available solution.
I think a quest should be something special, something unique and character defining that occurs differently to each player.
The example of a mob dropping a broken sword, which you have to reforge, is a very good example of that.
Not only, does the player have to travel out in the world and find other players that have the necessary skills to preform such a task,
but its also a quest that could happen, but for most players will not.
I should also mention that is something that could be handed out by a GM on mass scale,
Lets say that every player (member) of the "Eldor" kingdom is tasked with eradicating the goblin population,
by giving double exp for such types of mobs, or higher chance for loot.
Suddenly you have something unique for the server, and "world" is creating its own Lore instead of being static.
The player story,
Honestly, I think this one could go out the window. Its much more a single player game mechanic than it is a mmo mechanic.
Giving background information about the world,
I don't think its always needed in such a degree that it is implemented today.
One important subject is that while your character, who has always existed in the world, you as a player know nothing of it.
To be honest, in most games, most background lore is given outside of game.
But it would also make a lot of sense if you were kept in the dark, for instance if you are playing a fantasy game,
chances are that your character know very little outside your own bubble and can only base your knowledge on what is happening right before your eyes (unless you were a highly dedicated scholar).
By placing bits and pieces, such as books, ruins of older societies, engravings in the world etc, you could, as a player start to put pieces of information together and learn more about the world by exploring it.
Vendor etc.
A storage space, could be a chest.
A vendor, could be a player could be a booth that a player sets up with an expiration time. Aka. insert coin, get item.
Auction house could go.
Crafting classes and other locked mechanics,
I don't see the need to lock crafting classes at all. It makes a lot more sense to have everything available to you as a character,
both as a reference to the real world and as a gameplay mechanic.
Should you want to focus on crafting everything, and thats your thing, great, you shouldn't have to make 4 alts to do so.
And that pretty much leaves all the npc's you never interact with,
and yes, I can see the argument that i populates a world and makes in more ""living"".
I honestly think, GMs could do a whole lot more on the human aspect.
Such as controlling NPCs of "higher power",like the immortal elf king, instead of just having them standing around like a piece of furniture.
And interact with the world.
Just pointing out some suggestions to alternatives....
in their current iteration within most games: no
Most are filler props that look more out of place than giving the area a vibrant feeling that the place is alive.
The others are nothing more than someone posting a job offer on a stump....and usually as exciting and useful as the stump. The nerve to tell me to tell something to the guy next to you, or across the town...use the mail system or walk it yourself.....cant kill the things directly in my sight? Try moving locations. I swear if I have to clear a farmers field of respawning mobs, then pick his crops one more time in a mmo...
More logical approach would be to have a handyman office where people can post their odd jobs...because a quest reflects something epic at hand, and that npc just wanted me to hand a note to some idiot nearby, only to have that guy tell me to go kill some creatures nearby....which is anything but epic.
There are a few games where NPC"s are not needed. Problem is you would have to put things people actually want to acquire on the stuff you kill, removing the need for a cheesy reason to go there and start slaughtering those creatures....which is how it should be. The quests...those should be some epic storyline giving me a reason to be not at home banging my npc wife and watching a low polygon tv. The rest ill do if theres reason to without some idiot npc creating a "our writers couldn't think of anything else" reason for me to do it.
Was a cool transition back in the day from farming fields of mobs for no reason for little reward to games that had quest hubs and faster XP....but like all things gaming...they got carried away with it. The rest of the filler NPC's....nothing more than props that serve no purpose other than a boring comment maybe...and really don't make the town or whatever feel alive...
So is it a MMORPG? I think yes. . .
. . .An MMORPG that happens to have no NPC's in it whatsoever. . .
Whatever. I just wish the ubiquitous question mark would go away, leaving players with OCD tendencies like myself to feel freer to ignore machines/NPCs at will rather than serve their every whim.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
It was one of the biggest complaints of the players.
http://alexnisnevich.github.io/untrusted/
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
- law enforcement (ex: UO's town guards, EVE's CONCORD)
- allies and enemies, based on factors such as faction, alignment, reputation
- Escort, damsel in distress, or other entities requiring player aid (ex: UO's orc/ratman camps sometimes have NPCs that you can escort to safety once you have dispatched the mobs and freed them)
- guide, assistant or teacher (ex: a Vendetta Online NPC actually takes you on a training tour in a small fleet)
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I'm assuming you are referring to Asheron's Call 2 (AC2).
I have never played it, and I limited information about it.
But wasn't that game released just after Asheron's Call 1.
And didn't the chat system stop working for months in that game?
And wasn't there a bug that made you max level, and no endgame content.
Actually, wasn't it a lot of bugs in that game in general... and not balanced at all.
Anyway, assuming no npc's was, as you say, one of the largest complaints.
What exactly was missing.
And I mean what kind of services was missing from the game that players failed to deliver?
I have played a successful game where only viable equipment were provided and sold by actual players (as opposed to an auction house, npc vendor), or provided as loot.
So I have a hard time imagining it is a reason for failure.
@Madimorga ;
I agree, every time I see one of those question marks or exclamation marks, I feel like its a checkbox I should be ticking off in order to progress "correctly".
Planetside one and two for example are completely devoid of NPCs and units external to the players. It works in this instance because it's an MMOFPS that focuses relatively singularly on the large-scale conflict between the groups in the game and doesn't really venture past that PvP focus.
An RPG tends to suffer from a lack of NPCs because they are a big part of making a world feel populated in the absence of players.
So point here being. It depends what the aim of the game itself is and how different assets and mechanics would service the title.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Since you reply, I'm going to assume you have given this some thought.
Wouldn't it be more immersive to talk to other players rather than NPCs,
having him/her telling you about their current experiences in the world.
If you are referring to world lore, as in past tense, this is something natively known to your character,
and as such, couldn't it be provided without an npc telling you?
What exactly does your character need help for that can't be provided by other players, or only npcs?